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Lipase...depressed...what kind of bottle warmer do I need?

Ever since I first heard about lipase, I thought "I bet that will happen to me".

Yup...it finally did:

DH is home fulltime with my son, and always tells me how fussy he is on Mondays. I thought it was just that he missed his Mommy. Yesterday, Daddy mentioned that he only ate10 oz all day, and it was a struggle. Usually he could suck down 18 oz in a 12-14 hour day. I pumped some fresh, and had a taste test with the thawed milk from Wednesday. Fresh-good, thawed-. I usually freeze it as soon as I get home, and it's in the fridge at work all day. I kept 1 oz of yesterday's milk in fridge at home, and by 6 this morning it was 'off'. So we're looking at 22 hours best case or 14 hours worst case scenario, in the time it takes to go bad. (I didn't label them with times of pumping).

Reading over the lipase threads, I see bottle warmers mentioned a few times for scalding. Does every bottle warmer get it to the right temperature? Do I need a special programmable one...if they even make one like that? Do I need a candy thermometer to check the temp? (I tried scalding on the stove, and ended up with a chunky separated mess)

Will my LO have a harder time pooping with scalded milk? Is it safe to use plastic bottles in the warmer?

DH just called, and said that the last bag of frozen milk from 11/25 was bad, but from 11/27 was ok. So at least he won't starve today. (He also has dairy/soy intolerance, so even emergency formula isn't an option...not that I'd even want to go down that road)

DS will be 6 months on the 17th. Should I even think about solids early? I'm not sure he's ready, since he still has bloody poop if I eat dairy/eggs.

Re: Lipase...depressed...what kind of bottle warmer do I need?

I'm sorry you're dealing with this. Did you look at the lipase thread? I think that tells you what to do as far as bottle warmers go. I found out I have a lipase issue too late to do anything about it, I sure wish I had known earlier.

You don't need to start solids early, just figure out how to scald your milk. It sounds like you can do it right when you get home and it will be fine. Or maybe you can do it in your office right after you pump.

It won't cause your baby problems with going to the bathroom, the only thing I could see happening is that he wouldn't get all of the immunity factors that are in the milk. That's not great - but way way better than formula, which it doesn't seem is an option anyway.

Re: Lipase...depressed...what kind of bottle warmer do I need?

I developed a lipase problem when my third LO was around 6-7 months old.

Any bottle warmer is fine. You have to experiment with how much water to add -- which is more than what the manufacturer will recommend -- to make it go warm enough and stay there long enough to keep the milk at the required temp. I bought a First Years, and I add one full "tube" of water, stick in the thermometer probe and leave it to its job. The thermometer beeps when it's long enough, then I pull the bottle out and let it stand on the counter, experience teaching me that it will stay warm enough that way in my kitchen. Then I cool it down, and then I put it in something to store it for a few days in the fridge for my LO. It's honestly not that hard once you figure out what you need to do by experimenting with some water in bottles.

I got an oven thermometer, one with a probe on a cord, like for cooking a turkey (in fact, I used it for that last week) and that has been awesome.

Re: Lipase...depressed...what kind of bottle warmer do I need?

Thanks everyone for your help. Kind of disheartening to get a call from DH later on telling me that even yesterday's was bad, and LO was refusing all bottles. Sigh.

lsksam, I especially appreciate the detailed procedure. I'm in the science field, so step by step procedures are very comforting!

I scalded all of the milk from today, and put it all in the freezer. If things are still a bit off tomorrow, I'll try leaving some in the fridge, rather than freezer. And I'll play around with the temp if necessary--I did the 145 for 1 minute.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for tomorrow. That's all I have for a supply right now. It's all or nothing so I hope this scalding did the trick.

We've talked about the hypoallergenic formula contingency plan, but hope it doesn't come to that.

Re: Lipase...depressed...what kind of bottle warmer do I need?

Success!!

lsksam's detailed protocol worked perfectly! DS seemed happy with the scalded thawed milk yesterday. Had a little trouble getting him to take the bottle again "heck no-you tried to poison me with that thing the other day". But with some coaxing, he seemed ok yesterday.

I'm still kind of worried about how he'll be on Monday with Friday's thawed milk. But anything has got to taste better than what he was getting!